Hello,
My TL is 18.5 years old, has about 169K miles.
On Saturday we were driving on the highway at a steady 60 mph when suddenly the A/C stopped blowing cold air. I am trying to find out if others have had the same problem with this car or not.
I am hoping it is just the refrigerant and not the A/C condensor.

The car is fine mechanically - paint is fading, front seat leather is torn in the usual spots, otherwise no issues.
Oh and I have 0:00 in the clock and cannot reset it. I did update the DVD for the navigation in 2010.

Any ideas/help from the community would be greatly appreciated.

 

First step would be to test if you have any refrigerant in the system. Just give the check valve in the Low side port a quick press. If nothing comes out, you lost the refrigerant through some leak. You can check to see if the compressor is working by visually looking at it, and seeing if the inner part is spinning with the outer.

 

Is any air at all blowing when you turn the heater or A/C on? If not and this happened to me recently... There's a harness that plugs into the blower motor under the glove box,,, The connector can be burnt and our cars are made to tell the heater or compressor not to come on if any components shorted out.

If the connector to the motor looks ok.. Check the transistor it's on the same harness with a red and blue wire up under the glove box area too... Also check the fuses/relays... If it's refridgerant you'll get warm air with AC on .. normally you will hear a compressor clutch giving out when its about to die,,,

 

I bought my replacement harness off eBay for $15 in case that's the culprit. Make sure to check what coloe wire is on what side of the harness.

 

If you're trying to be really frugal and the harness is the culprit, you can totally just solder the wires in. That's what I ended up doing because both the blower fan connector and the harness male connector were burnt to shreds and I didn't want to replace both.

 

When you turn on the AC does the fan on the passenger side of the radiator spin? If not you can check the fuse for it (20 amp I believe) as well as the relay, both are located in the engine compartment on the passenger side near the firewall. If the fuse and relay are good but the fan does not spin get a replacement. I believe they are available at Autozone and O'reillys for about $75. The compressor won't turn on if that fan isn't on. When checking the fuse/relay you are looking for the ones labeled condenser fan.

 

Thank you everyone for your help.
The fan on the radiator (towards the power steering reservoir side) had gone bad and needed replacing. The other one had been replaced about 8 years ago.
The power steering fluid line was replaced along with the o-rings and that took care of the leak but now there is a crazy noise (some air is somehow getting into the system) so it needs a new power steering pump.
So far $500 in repairs and now another $280 for the aftermarket power steering pump.